Claiming Her SEAL (ASSIGNMENT: Caribbean Nights Book 1) (7 page)

As much as he chaffed against working for ReefCo, which was a painful, necessary evil, he had to admit that having a flexible schedule and the ability to get
paid
for scuba diving… well, he had a lot of nerve complaining.

Everything drained from his mind in a snap as the moonlight flashed across a supple body in a white bikini walking toward him on the beach from the opposite direction.

Emma.

“What are you doing here?” he demanded as she stopped short less than a foot from him.

His mood, her scent, and the witching hour crashed together in a swirl that had danger written all over it. His body strained to yank her into his arms, to lose himself in her, taste something that sweet after the sour that had coated his throat all day.

“Looking for you, of course,” she said simply. “I’m ready.”

“For what?” he growled, drinking in the way her hair draped across her shoulders, as white as her swimsuit in the pale spotlight of the moon.

What would it hurt if he slid a chunk across his fingertips? Just to see what it felt like. His skin had little nicks from handling parasailing ropes, and those silky strands would probably catch on the unhealed spots, but it would be like a balm to his saltwater-roughened hands.

“For you to take me in the water.”

Yes
. Emma. Water. It would sluice off her fit little body, running in rivulets down the valley between her breasts, and her hair would hang in thick, dripping strands down her wet back. Maybe he’d reach for the string at her neck and pull. Slowly. The bow would gradually slip free from its knot and those white, drenched triangles would peel away… and then he would
take her
all right.

No
. No Emma, no water.

“Now? It’s… dark,” he announced inanely.

Actually, he was way too hopped-up on loneliness and way too pissed about discovering his taste in women had turned on him to do anything with Emma. She needed a lesson in the art of timing, really bad.

“Please, Dex.” Her voice caught on it, turning gravelly and far sexier than it should have been. “Rachel is locked up in our hotel room, and judging from the sounds coming from inside, she’s either being given the orgasm of her life or learning to speak Klingon. Either way, I didn’t want to barge in.”

Dex shut his eyes with a groan. “So you walked a mile on a dark beach without a flashlight? Have you learned nothing about the dangers around here?”

She smiled and it washed over him, drawing him into her orbit where very bad things were going to happen. But he couldn’t tear himself free.

“I knew if I kept walking, I find you. You won’t let anything happen to me.”

“I’m one of the dangers, Emma!” God, would nothing he said ever get through to this woman?

“Yeah, so you say. Let’s put that to the test, shall we?” Without warning, she whirled and headed toward the silvery water, glancing over her shoulder with an enigmatic little pucker of her lips. “Coming?”

His feet started following her without his permission, and he forced himself to stop, digging his toes into the sand. “What are you doing?”

Duh. She was wading into the water. But then the first lick of foam rushed over her neon-green painted toenails and she froze, going so still, his palm came up automatically to reassure her even though he was too far away to actually touch her.

Why was she too far away to touch?

A strangled whimper floated to him on the soft breeze and it sounded a hell of a lot like
Dex
.

She needed him.

He took a step, cursed, and then spit out a few more choice phrases. Looked like he’d be doing the Hokey Pokey tonight himself. That’s what it was all about, and he’d conveniently dressed for the occasion. Totally by accident, but when a guy practically lived in the water, all of this seemed strangely inevitable.

The tide rushed over his bare feet as he waded after Emma, and then he was close enough to touch her. So he did. “Yeah, sweetheart. I’m here.”

When his palm spread across her back, she leaned into it. His eyelids snapped closed as a sharp thrill rocketed through his body. They had no other contact save the expanse of his hand covering mere inches of her bare skin, and he was already so hard and aching with unrestrained hunger, his knees started to quake.

“Take another step,” he commanded softly. “I’ll go with you.”

She did and he did.

“Dex.” That strangled whimper was going to be the death of him. “Why can’t I do this by myself?”

He shook his head. “That’s the wrong question. You’re not by yourself. The right question is, how far can you go while I’m with you?”

Her soft little sigh bled through him, burrowing under his skin like a thousand needles.
That
was the pleasure and pain a woman could bring, and he craved Emma like he craved his next breath. His entire existence was a paradox: he was good at killing, but hated that he could pull the trigger without reservation. He thrived on community, but sought out relationships with people who had worse emotional problems than he did so he could pretend he was all right.

He wanted to be the kind of guy who could be with Emma, and mourned that he couldn’t erase who was.

“Closer,” she whispered. “I’m scared.”

This time, that strangled whimper rumbled in his own chest.

“Dex. I want to see how far I can go.”

Yeah, he wasn’t so dense that he didn’t get the metaphor here. The deeper into the ocean they went, the more immovable hooks she sank into his flesh. The harder it would be to shake loose of the spell the moonlight and Emma wove, snaring him firmly.

It would hurt to break away this time.

Understanding it didn’t change it. Which meant there was really no other choice but to nestle her into the crook of his arm, settling his palm against her waist. Dear Lord, how did she fit in that spot so snugly? She was too short. It shouldn’t have worked. But oh, it did.

Her torso brushed against his as she dragged oxygen into her lungs, then receded as she exhaled. He held his own breath until she did it again. And that wasn’t going to work. He needed air. She’d already made him dizzy enough with the way she’d whimpered his name.

“Better?” he asked hoarsely, though how it could be was beyond him.

She nodded, peering up at him with those baby blues, and in the moonlight they’d darkened. Or maybe that was due to the heavy, thick blanket of awareness that had descended the moment he’d drawn her against his side.

She felt it too. There was no point in pretending he didn’t notice the way her nipples had peaked under her bikini top. The hard tips poked out, begging for his mouth, and if they didn’t get this show on the road, her breasts would get their wish.

“Walk with me,” he said instead of voicing some kind of line designed to get his screaming body some relief.

In tandem, they waded out into the surf, and his chest tightened when he realized she wasn’t even hesitating. She followed him without a peep, letting him guide her, and he had a feeling that as long as he didn’t let go, she’d stay right where she was.

“You’re doing great,” he murmured as the water level rose. Ankles. Calves. Knees. His knees, anyway. The water was up to midthigh on her. “Keep going. Nothing behind you but the shore.”

She gave him the side-eye, never taking her gaze off the waves as they rolled toward them relentlessly. “You know I couldn’t have done this without you, right?”

So much gratefulness colored her voice that it raised a lump in his throat. Yeah, he got that this was important to her. Why else would he be torturing himself so thoroughly?

All at once, she squealed and jumped. Right into his embrace. The soft valleys of her body aligned with his, and sweet, blessed mother of God, her stomach cradled his erection, setting it on fire with friction.

His arms closed around her involuntarily, and holy hell, it was exactly where he wanted her. “What’s wrong?”

“I… stepped on something.” Her heaving torso shoved into his and there was no denying that her pulse was elevated, but his brain was having a hard time sorting out the sensation of her peaked nipples teasing his bare skin well enough to respond.

“Crab,” he finally croaked. “It won’t hurt you.”

But I might.

His neck muscles ached with the strain it took to not lean forward and dive into a hot, wet kiss. That wasn’t the part that would hurt. The hurt came later, when she’d want to connect intimately through their hearts and minds as they simultaneously connected via the flesh. She’d want to share hopes and dreams and learn who he was at his core. Because a woman like Emma didn’t offer up her body to someone she didn’t care to know.

“Can we go deeper?” she rasped, her voice scraping the low end of the register, but whether it was from fear of the ocean or arousal at his touch, he couldn’t tell.

Maybe both, and he wanted to find out in the worst way. Again, the paradox… it was killing him.

“Absolutely.”

His own voice rumbled in his chest as their gazes locked, and neither of them bothered to pretend they were still talking about the water. Or solely the water. This push-pull of attraction so closely mirrored the tide it made a perfect sort of sense that when he finally gave in to the lure of Emma, it would happen while they were both surrounded by the sea.

The roar of the surf held its own kind of seduction, and he didn’t need a lame line after all to communicate what was on his mind. She lifted her lips at the same moment his descended and when they met, she hurled him headlong into a metaphorical undertow so fast he could hardly maintain his balance.

Hungrily, she kissed him, openmouthed, and it was just as hot and wet as he’d envisioned. A groan ripped through his chest as he hauled her closer, binding her flesh against his hard body, grinding his erection into her soft stomach, seeking relief for the fire she’d started earlier.

Then she licked her way into his mouth, her sweet tongue tasting him enthusiastically, and it was like pouring lighter fluid on embers.

His body erupted in a lava-like thick wave of heat.
More
. He shifted her in his arms and granted her wish, driving deeper into her mouth, and letting her drag him deeper into the quandary that was this insane reaction he had to her.

But then she slid one palm inside his shorts to cup his rear and her little finger wandered toward the front, where the ache could only be salved one way—by stripping that tiny bikini from her luscious body and having his way with her.

“Dex.” Her voice shattered into nothingness as she sighed his name against his lips. “Look. I’m in the water and it’s not so bad because you’re here. And you’re kissing me. Tell me that’s not so bad either.”

Her point wasn’t lost on him, even while under the influence of an Emma-induced haze of lust. She’d done something scary, something she hadn’t want to do but he’d made it easier for her. Totally against his will, but far be it from him to mention it.

She was asking for validation that whatever had caused him to warn her away had somehow magically become better, simply because
she
was here. How did he tell her it was worse?
So
much worse.

And he had just enough presence of mind to realize that if he took advantage of her hero worship in order to get her naked, he’d be exactly the dickhead he’d warned her he was. So he couldn’t do it. Because he couldn’t stand for the one person who saw him as something else to be given a reason to change her mind.

It was the worst paradox of all.

B
efore Emma could fully register what was happening, Dex had dropped his arms and stepped away.

Her skin prickled as a chilly wave crashed against her thighs. Without Dex’s heat, the water had turned bleak and cold. And frightening. The moonlight didn’t penetrate the surface but instead cast the water with an opaque sheen that hid all sorts of dangers underneath.

Dex was not one of them. She’d believe in his self-purported bad boy status when pigs flew.

“Where are you going?” she asked point blank.

This song and dance was getting old. She wanted him. He wanted her—and if he tried to lie about that fact when it was blatantly obvious what had been digging into her abdomen for the better part of five minutes, she’d deck him.

“You’re in the water,” he muttered. “What more do you want from me?”

Everything
. The hard length that had evidenced his desire. His mouth on hers again. His smile, his gallantry, the sweet way he encouraged her to move forward no matter what lay behind.

But she’d start with the truth.

Advancing on him, she stuck a finger in the dead center of his chest. “So, I’ve had just about enough of this, Dex. I’m really bad at reading minds, so just tell me what’s so big and scary about you that you think I can’t handle it?”

She couldn’t handle a lot about her life back in Boston. This trip was a chance to fix that and this hardheaded man was not ruining her redo.

He glanced down at her finger and back up again, sardonic amusement twisting his mouth into a smile he probably meant to appear cruel. But she could see vulnerability flitting through his depths. Way deep down where he’d probably forgotten it existed. That, or he thought the darkness covered it.